


Day 21 - Infection

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Whumptober 2020 [21]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Bodily Fluids, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick Grayson is Robin, Don't copy to another site, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Infection, Medical Procedures, Teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27132256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: 3 times Dick had a relatively alright time with his teeth, and one time he really, really did not.No 21. I DON’T FEEL SO WELLChronic Pain | Hypothermia |Infection
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: Whumptober 2020 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947217
Comments: 36
Kudos: 132





	Day 21 - Infection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CKBookish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CKBookish/gifts).



> For the amazing CKBookish, who suggested a 5+1 Dick going to the dentist fic. I hope you like it <333
> 
> Warnings: tooth removal (both baby and adult), gunshot wounds, pus, infections, blood, gross bodily fluids
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own DC

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

1.

Bruce was in his home office when Dick came in. Bruce pretended not to notice the tiny movement of the door, keeping his head down and focusing on the pages upon pages of paper spread out before him.

There was suddenly a head poking down from above him, knobbly knees on Bruce’s shoulders to balance.

“Hey, B!” Dick said cheerily. “You’ll never guess what!”

“Well, if I’ll _never_ guess,” Bruce said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“No,” Dick said, drawing out the word. His head dropped even lower, arms flopping forward. “You gotta _guess_.”

“But you said I’ll never guess,” Bruce reminded him, signing one of the pages and setting it aside. “There’d be no point to me guessing.”

“Try anyway,” Dick said. He moved from looking down with just his forehead visible to Bruce, to sitting on his shoulders.

Bruce pretended to let out a long sigh. “You finished your homework?” he guessed.

“Nope,” Dick said. And then he hastily added, “No, I finished it, but that’s not what it is.”

Bruce snorted. “You cleaned your room?”

“ _B!_ C’mon!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Bruce said, patting Dick’s socked foot. “You found a fun rock?”

“Close enough!”

With that, Dick rolled backwards off of Bruce and landed on the floor beside the giant armchair. Bruce turned to appraise him, wondering what sort of a strange trinket Dick would have to show to him this time. He hoped it wasn’t something living – last time, Dick had wanted to start a ladybird farm.

Dick stuck out his hand. “Look!” he said, bouncing up and down on his toes in his excitement.

Bruce peered down at his hand. In it was a handkerchief, one of the cloth ones that Dick never carried around anywhere. And nestled in it was a strange, pointy object. One side had reddish tinges.

Bruce squinted at it. “Is it a shell?” he finally asked. He didn’t want to touch it until Dick told him what it was – he’d made that mistake one too many times.

Dick giggled. “It’s my tooth!” he said.

Bruce blinked. “What do you mean, it’s your tooth?” he said slowly.

Dick opened his mouth wide, leaning in close enough to Bruce to show him the gaping, raw hole that was now in Dick’s mouth.

Bruce jumped forward, one hand going to Dick’s face to hold his mouth open. “What happened?” he demanded. They were due an inspection from CPS sometime in the following week – a knocked out tooth would be grounds for child negligence. And besides all that, far more importantly, Dick had _knocked out_ his _tooth_.

Dick let out a muffled noise, attempting to speak but mouth held open as Bruce examined the area. It wasn’t bleeding, which was lucky, and it appeared to be a clean break, so there were high chances of it being replaceable – or even put back in place.

Bruce let go of Dick’s mouth, wanting to examine the tooth. The moment he did so, Dick began speaking.

“Well,” he said, still in that same upbeat manner that Bruce couldn’t make head or tail of, “I climbed up the apple tree, like I normally do, and I picked out an apple, like I normally do, and then I ate it and I accidentally bit with this side of my mouth,” he indicated the side with the missing tooth, “and then it just came out.”

Bruce _stared_ at him. “What do you mean ‘it just came out’?”

Dick shrugged. “I’ve been wobbling it for a few days, so it was a bit early, but I guess the apple kinda sped up the process.”

“Process?” Dick had been loosening his teeth intentionally?

“Do you wanna come outside with me to bury it?” Dick asked. “We buried all my other ones, but only two are in the same place.”

“Dick, you _lost_ your _tooth_ ,” Bruce said, hands going on the boy’s shoulders to steer him out of the room. “We’re going to the dentist.”

“Why?” Dick asked, head turning around to look confusedly at Bruce. “It’s fine. Not even bleeding anymore. Is it because there’s no new one there yet? My parents told me it’s better to get them out before the new one has a chance to come in, because then it might not grow straight.”

And that was when Bruce remembered that children’s teeth fell out. He closed his eyes and breathed out. “You lost your baby tooth?” he asked.

“Yeah…” Dick said, in that voice children have when they think someone is being a complete imbecile. At that moment, though, Bruce considered _himself_ an idiot, too. “That’s why I was wobbling it?” When Bruce didn’t move, too busy standing in the doorway of his office and trying his best to regain the years of his life that he’d lost staring at the gross, bloody tooth in Dick’s hand, Dick prompted, “So are we gonna to bury it or what?”

2.

Bruce hadn’t thought to ask when children stopped losing their teeth after that incident. He’d assumed that Dick just wouldn’t have any more baby teeth left, and the thought of _teeth_ falling out naturally at that age made him squeamish in a way he really couldn’t explain.

So when Dick came into his room one night after dinner, the thought of teeth was the last thing on Bruce’s mind.

Bruce was in bed, reading. He glanced up at Dick, who was appeared to be ready in pyjamas. Normally, Dick would only really come in to ask Bruce to read to him, or to pester him into letting Dick stay awake a little longer – to which Bruce would give in rather easily, because he didn’t have it in him to say no to a request like that.

Dick stopped right beside Bruce rather expectantly.

“Dick,” Bruce greeted. “You want me to read to you?”

Dick shook his head, and then hesitated and nodded. “After, though,” he said.

Bruce frowned. “After what?”

Dick opened his mouth and reached in with a finger. As Bruce watched, with no small amount of horror, the tip of his finger touched one of his teeth and he _moved_ it back and forth in a way that teeth were _not_ supposed to go.

Bruce stared at him. “You have more baby teeth left?” he said.

Dick nodded. “Yeah, I lost count. But this one’s pretty ready to go.” He looked at Bruce expectantly.

“You want me to…”

“Pull it out,” Dick said cheerfully, looking much too happy about having his _tooth_ yanked out of his _mouth_.

“What did you do to the other ones?” Bruce wasn’t entirely sure why he was suggesting to his nine-year-old that he removed his tooth on his own, but the thought of doing it himself was _horrifying_.

“They either fell out by themselves or like the apple, or…” some of the cheeriness dimmed for a moment, “or one of my parents would get it out for me.”

_Oh_. Well, there wasn’t anything Bruce could say to that without feeling like a complete asshole. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Is there a procedure?”

He couldn’t remember his own teeth falling out, but surely they must’ve. He’d been about the same age as Dick when his parents had died; did that mean that Alfred had helped with his? Or had he gone to Leslie?

Dick sat there with a look of exasperation as Bruce called up Alfred, who was at his weekly poker night. Alfred said, “Bruce, if Master Dick says it’s time, then just reach in there and pull it out,” before he had to go.

Bruce determinedly dialled Leslie’s number.

“Wobble it yourself a little before you really go in for the pull,” she advised. Bruce felt a little nauseous at the thought. “If you feel _really_ unsure, you can always wait till the morning and find a dentist. But it’s really just the same process, Bruce.”

Dick refused to wait until the morning to see a dentist. He stood with his arms crossed by the bathroom sink as Bruce scrolled through countless websites to see the best tooth removing methods.

If anything, parent forums were _worse_. One person suggested a wrench.

“Finally,” Dick muttered as Bruce walked into the bathroom. He hopped up onto the countertop and opened his mouth. “I’m ready,” he said, attempting to speak with his mouth still open.

Bruce thoroughly washed his hands, and then dried them. He glanced at Dick. “Are you sure you don’t want anaes—”

“ _No_ , B,” Dick said, tinges of frustration now coming through. “Just put your hand in there and _tug_. You’re _Batman_.”

“Fine, fine,” Bruce muttered under his breath. “Point it out to me again with your tongue.”

Dick did so, even wiggling the tooth slightly. Saliva was pooling in his mouth now that he couldn’t really swallow. There had been many things that people had warned Bruce about, when he’d taken in an eight-year-old, but saliva hadn’t been one of them.

Bruce reached in and gently wobbled the tooth himself, as per Leslie’s suggestions. It was unnatural, the way it moved. And it was absolutely _tiny_ , too, just a little pointed thing that was attached to Dick’s skull.

“I’m going for it,” he said, mostly to hype himself up. “Are you sure?”

Dick glared at him, and Bruce sighed.

His fingers tightened around the tooth, moving it around a little bit to try and see if he could free it without really having to _tug_. Dick’s breathing had picked up now, one hand clenching the benchtop and the other wrapped around Bruce’s shirt.

Bruce stopped immediately. “Is this hurting you?” he asked, peering inside Dick’s mouth to see if there was any blood.

Dick shook his head. “Not more than it always does,” he said. “Bruce, c’mon. Pretend you’re pulling a piece of glass out of my skin or something.”

“This is different,” Bruce grumbled. “The piece of glass isn’t attached to your jaw. Are you sure the string method is bad?”

“I’m sure,” Dick said. “It’s pointless trying that way.”

Bruce reached into Dick’s mouth once more. Most of it was loose and there was no real reason for it to even be attached to Dick’s gums at this point, with how—

The tooth came out.

Bruce almost dropped it out of plain shock that it had actually come out. He stared at it, the tiny little white tooth in his palm, little bits of red spotting the bottom where the last part had been attached.

“Let me see!” Dick tugged on Bruce’s hand until Bruce lowered it to Dick’s eye level. “That’s so much smaller than it felt.”

“Let me see your gums,” Bruce said, and Dick opened his mouth to show Bruce the now empty space.

It wasn’t really bleeding, but Dick gargled water anyway, and in the morning, they buried it around where the other one had been.

3.

Dick was giving Bruce the look of complete and utter betrayal as they sat in the waiting room. Bruce sighed and went back to the magazine he was flicking through, showing Dick pictures from time to time. Dick had yet to actually look at them.

“It’s for your own good, chum,” Bruce said for the what felt like the thousandth time.

Dick didn’t respond, arms crossed tight and slumping in his seat.

A man in a labcoat stepped out. “Mr Wayne?” he called.

A few heads looked up at them as Bruce stood, giving the man a small smile as he waited for Dick to follow. Dick only stayed stubborn for about ten seconds, before he was standing with a huff and following the doctor inside.

Bruce hadn’t anticipated that Dick would hate the dentist quite as much as he did. _Bruce_ had never really disliked it beyond the normal discomfort one felt about a stranger rooting around inside one’s mouth. Dick, however, had apparently never been to the dentist before. His first time had been at the juvenile detention centre he’d been kept in, where they’d done a physical on him to determine his health.

“He’ll even give you a lollipop,” Bruce had promised when he'd made the appointment. “And you get to skip school.”

“I _like_ school,” Dick had protested. “And lollipops aren’t worth what they’re going to do to me. One of the kids in my class told me his uncle went to the dentist because he had a bad tooth, and the dentist pulled out the _wrong tooth_.”

Bruce hadn't really known what to say to that.

The dentist turned to them with a smile when they entered the room. “Hello, Bruce,” he said with a warm smile. “And you must be Richard.”

“Dick,” Dick said, and Bruce resisted the urge to step on Dick’s toes when the doctor blinked.

“He prefers to go by Dick,” Bruce said hastily. Was this what it was like to have a teenager? Had _he_ been like this at Dick’s age?

Understanding coloured the doctor’s face. “Of course,” he said. He held out a hand for Dick to shake. “I’m Doctor Forman. Your dad tells me—”

“He’s not my dad,” Dick said. It was clear that the dentist really wasn’t prepared for this at ten in the morning. Bruce was beginning to feel rather sorry for him.

“He doesn’t like coming to the dentist,” Bruce said, cutting in before either of them could continue with this conversation. “His back tooth has been hurting for a few days now, and we thought—”

“ _You_ thought,” Dick muttered.

“—that it was best to get it checked out before it had a chance to get worse,” Bruce finished, completely ignoring Dick.

“I see,” Dr Forman said with a nod. “Dick, can you tell me more? Or did Bruce cover it all?”

Dick shrugged a little. Before today, Bruce had been completely flabbergasted at comments by other parents when they mentioned their children acting up, because Dick had _never_ been like that. In all the five years that Dick had been with Bruce, Dick had… well, there’d been the sneaking out and the running away and the way he’d dealt with grief, but apart from that, Dick had been rather angelic.

Bruce understood, he really did. Dick had bad memories associated with getting his teeth checked. But they’d talked it through. Dick had agreed to it; now he was making it seem like Bruce had kidnapped him and brought him here.

“It hurts when I chew and if I poke at it,” he said simply.

Dr Forman nodded. “Can you hop up here so I can take a look.” At the slight panic in Dick’s eyes, he added, “I’ll only be using a light, okay? Anything that goes in your mouth I’ll tell you about first, and Bruce is right here to stab me with a scaler.” He let out a laugh, which then turned slightly nervous as Dick thoughtfully eyed the array of tools on the little tray.

Dick glanced at Bruce, who immediately came around the other side to stand beside him. Dick’s hand slipped into Bruce’s, clutching him tight as though he were worried Bruce would disappear on him.

Dr Forman peered inside Dick’s mouth only for a moment before he re-emerged. “There are some food particles in the back there, between your gums and the last tooth,” he explained. “You must not’ve been brushing all the way in there all the time. But it’s pretty easy to fix.”

He moved to the desk he had in the corner, and Dick’s grip on Bruce’s hand loosened just a little bit. They watched as Dr Forman typed out a few notes, and then the printer began whirring. In the meantime, he scribbled something on a slip of paper and brought it over to Bruce.

“It’s a prescription,” he said. “Gargle the recommended amount once after every meal. Make sure you get your whole mouth. _Don’t_ swallow it – that’s not good for you.”

“Thank you,” Bruce said, ready to leave. Dick had already hopped down from the chair.

“Since you’re here already, did you want me to scale Dick’s teeth?” Dr Forman asked. To Dick, he added, “It’s like professionally cleaning your house every once in a while. Completely painless, no drilling, just a lot of water and scraping off all the gunk that’s doesn’t really come off normally.”

Bruce glanced at Dick, who stared at him with wide eyes. “Uh,” he said, “maybe not today, doctor,” and Dick almost wilted in relief.

Dr Forman nodded. “That’s alright. It was nice meeting you, Dick.”

They left the room, Bruce folding the prescription as they exited the building and headed towards the pharmacy. On the way there, Dick had been a sullen presence beside him, stomping loudly and harrumphing every few steps of the way.

Now, he was still silent, but Bruce could practically hear the waves of relief radiating off of him.

“Thanks,” Dick mumbled. “For not making me do it.”

Bruce glanced at him. “Figured I might as well end the visit on a positive note,” he said. “You were eyeing that drill rather aggressively. I think even the dentist was glad.”

Dick snorted. “Sorry. For being… y’know. All morning.”

Bruce didn’t say anything, instead just squeezing Dick’s shoulder. “Want ice cream?” he said as they walked by the gelato place. _Bruce_ wanted ice cream.

“B, we just came from the _dentist_.”

+1

Dick whimpered through the cotton buds that were stuffed into his mouth. His head was groggy, and he could barely open his eyes through the distant buzzing in his head. There was a bright white light overhead, which didn’t make matters easier.

Dick’s fingers scrabbled weakly at the cold operating table he was strapped to. It’d been a long time – he didn’t know exactly how long – since he’d had the strength to actually take in his situation, to look around and try and plan an escape.

His only escape attempt had been short lived. He’d been shot with something in his lower leg, two security members jumping him the moment he’d stumbled. That had been when the first tooth had been taken. Dick had blacked out when that had happened.

He hadn’t been conscious when two more of his molars had been removed, only waking up to new holes in his mouth and a throbbing pain. He didn’t know if they’d given him anything, unable to differentiate the grogginess in his head between the pain from the gunshot wound and his mouth, to anything that might be because of drugs.

The light was suddenly blocked by something overhead, and Dick opened his eyes a fraction. There was someone standing beside him in a white lab coat, perfectly pristine except for the gloves, which were tipped with a red wetness. Her face was covered entirely by a surgical mask. If Dick still had the energy to shiver, he would’ve at the sight of the cold, analytical look in her eyes.

“Now,” she said, removing the gloves and replacing them with brand new ones. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Her cleanliness stood out amongst the grittiness of the room Dick was in. The walls had water stains and were plain grimy; the only bright light in here was the one overhead, so the entire room had a dank atmosphere to it. There was dirty medical equipment lying around all over the place – the gloves she had discarded were thrown atop a small table.

“Apparently you went and had the audacity to get your leg wound infected,” she said, as though she were speaking to a pet, or perhaps a baby. “That just won’t do, now, will it? We can always cut it off, but I _really_ can’t be bothered getting out the saw.”

Dick stayed perfectly still, knowing that making any noise would result in the removal of something or another. Five of his nails had been pulled out using plyers.

A cold, rubbery hand came and grabbed at his chin, forcing his face to turn towards her. Dick couldn’t stop the whimper of pain as she squeezed down.

The woman tutted, stroking a finger down Dick’s face in a detached way. “Now, what did we say about you and your mouth, hmm?”

She released him and stepped over to the tray, rifling through the implements before finding what she was looking for. The woman came back and reached into Dick’s mouth, tugging on the giant wad of cloth that was stuffed in there.

Dick breathed harshly when his mouth was empty, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. There was absolutely no saliva in his mouth – he didn’t know how long he’d been here, but he hadn’t been given food or water in that time. He didn’t know if he’d ever been attached to an IV line, either.

There was a tray in her hands when the woman returned. She placed in on Dick’s lap, and Dick shivered as he felt the cold metal of the tray seep in through the thin paper gown he’d been wearing when he’d come to.

“First,” she said, in a sickly sweet voice, “we’re going to do a check up, make sure everything’s going well in there.”

She squeezed Dick’s mouth again until he opened it, wet trails running down the sides of his face every time she touched his mouth. Dick had no idea what she was frowning at, but it couldn’t be good.

“We seem to have pus here. Infected, I'm assuming.” She said it to him the way kindergarten teachers told their charges that eating glue was bad. “I’ll have to drain that out of you. Give me a mo’.”

Dick didn’t want to be conscious for this. He wanted to sleep, to lose himself in the familiar blackness of his mind, where pain wouldn’t follow. He didn’t want to know how she was going to drain the apparent pus that was in his mouth.

Dick wished there was a clock in here. Surely he had been missing long enough that someone was out looking for him. He’d even been patrolling when he’d been taken – nowadays, Bruce got everyone to check in once they finished and were heading in for the night.

The woman emerged with a jar filled with a questionable substance. It was thick and orange, with bits of green mixed in. She opened the jar and tapped Dick’s cheek with the end of a metal spoon. Dick’s vision swam in and out as he complied slowly.

“You’re being a _very_ good patient for me today,” she said conversationally. “I think I’ll even give you a lollipop when I’m done.”

Dick closed his eyes as the cold gloopy mixture was spooned into his mouth, spreading over the gaping open holes where his teeth had previously been. A moment later, he was glad for the cold, because that numbed the area to some degree.

Dick’s ‘doctor’ tilted his head forward, holding a little kidney bowl in front of him. There was enough liquid filling Dick’s mouth that he automatically opened it, despite the protest his jaw made every time he moved it.

Out poured a combination of saliva, blood, the concoction she had given him, and something that was a thick yellowy-white. Dick squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see it. He didn’t consider himself a squeamish person, but there were things that no person could handle without gagging, and this was one of them.

Dick coughed and choked as the fluids continued to emerge, not having it within his pain tolerance to actually spit it out. He could feel the pus dripping out over his tongue, and his throat convulsed in an automatic attempt to swallow.

Dick gagged then, at the taste of it coating every inch of the inside of his mouth, now dribbling down his chin.

“Spit,” the woman commanded. Her hand tightened on the back of his neck as she said it.

Dick gathered up as much of the contents of his mouth as he could without the throbbing in his gums becoming too much to handle, and performed a weak attempt at spitting. His head was spinning, vision going in and out.

“There! Almost done!” A cloth was roughly scraped over his mouth and chin, gathering the last little remnants.

Dick breathed shallowly through his nose. His mouth no longer felt like it was on fire, as it had been for so long, but he couldn’t even _think_ about moving any part of his lower face – including his tongue – without the pain flaring once more.

There was the sound of metal on metal, and then the woman emerged with a wrench. “Open up,” she said. “I still have to take another one because you made a sound before, remember? You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you?”

Dick’s eyes widened as she adjusted the wrench, and then poked it through his lips. She tapped it on his front teeth.

“I said,” she repeated, that hard glint returning to her eyes, “ _open up—”_

At that moment, the door was kicked in. The woman spun around, holding the wrench in front of her like a sword.

Dick had never been more relieved to see Batgirl in his life.

He gave in to the desire to close his eyes, knowing that Cass had this handled. Dick could hear the blows, the shrieks of the woman as she was defeated in an instant, the click of handcuffs.

And then there was a hand at his wrist, frantically undoing the straps that were keeping him tied. Dick opened his eyes then, not risking a smile but hoping that Cass understood how relieved he was, how happy he was to see her.

“I have you,” Cass said. “Robin is outside. Taking care of the rest.”

Dick was relieved to hear that Tim was here as well – even with Cass’ skills, there were too many here, and Dick was a liability in this condition. He didn’t even know if his leg would still hold him right now.

Cass slipped an arm around his back and helped him sit up. “Drugs?” she said.

Dick signed _no_ , both to the fact that there were none in his system – that he was aware of, but that wasn’t important right now – and that he didn’t want any. He may be a liability in this condition, but he was dead weight unconscious.

Cass positioned herself beside his bad leg and dragged his arm around her shoulder. Being taller than him was an added bonus to how incredibly muscled Cass’ back and arms were. Dick could feel them shifting to keep as much of his weight on her feasible, and he squeezed her hand weakly, receiving a squeeze in response.

“The Batmobile’s almost here,” Cass murmured when she gently placed him by an outside wall. “You can sleep now. You’re safe.”

There weren’t many people Dick trusted when they said those words. He didn’t know Cass as much as he wished he did. He couldn’t remember if they’d ever met outside of costumes, and half the things he knew about her were from Barbara.

But he trusted her with everything he had, so when Cass said he could rest, Dick closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> (I definitely gagged writing this)
> 
> Can I also say that Bruce forgetting that kids lose their teeth is Highkey from adults I've met who just. Somehow forget that losing your baby teeth is something that happens
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!


End file.
